The Red Planet: Mars. If you’re reading this, I assume you know a good deal about the background of ancient astronaut claims for prehistoric alien activity on Mars: how Percival Lowell saw what he thought were canals on Mars—but were actually an optical illusion—and then extrapolated from that an advanced Martian civilization; how H. G. Wells used this to create the War of the Worlds; and how that in turn influenced innumerable science fiction stories like Edgar Rice Burrows’s John Carter novels. This in turn fed back into the science-mythology of pseudoscience where the occupants of UFOs became the proverbial little green men from Mars.

If you read this blog regularly, you probably also know that the very first claim that extraterrestrials built the pyramids appeared in one such science fiction novel, Garrett P. Serviss’s unauthorized War of the Worlds sequel Edison’s Conquest of Mars(1898) in which Thomas Edison travels to Mars and discovers that the Martians are disciples of Zecharia Sitchin—which is to say that they keep humans as slaves, mine gold across the universe, engage in great aerial battles, and built the monuments of early human civilizations:

This Land of Sand and of a wonderful fertilizing river—what can it be? Gentlemen, it is Egypt! These mountains of rock that the Martians have erected, what are they? Gentlemen, they are the great mystery of the land of the Nile, the Pyramids. The gigantic statue of their leader that they at the foot of their artificial mountains have set up—gentlemen, what is that? It is the Sphinx! […] To think that we should have come to the planet Mars to solve one of the standing mysteries of the earth, which had puzzled mankind and defied all their efforts at solution for so many centuries! Here, then, was the explanation of how those gigantic blocks that constitute the great Pyramid of Cheops had been swung to their lofty elevation. It was not the work of puny man, as many an engineer had declared that it could not be, but the work of these giants of Mars.

Now Ancient Aliens S06E16 “Aliens and the Red Planet” picks up where such luminaries as Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara (author of Ancient Aliens on Mars) leave off, speculating wildly about what aliens really did on Mars. Somehow this comes very close to involving the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator. The show opens by asking why NASA spends money exploring Mars when the government has so many other things to waste money on, and then Jonathan Young of the Joseph Campbell Archives falsely states that Mars is the “biggest” thing in the night sky after the moon. This is false. Both Venus and Sirius are brighter, for starters. He and former NASA scientist Robert H. Frisbee suggest that ancient people speculated about whether intelligent life could be found on Mars, but this is also false. Mars was not recognized as a body akin to the earth until the Renaissance. Before that the speculation was whether a choir of angels lived on the crystalline sphere geocentric theorists imagined Mars to be encased within. Dante describes this in the Paradiso as the Fifth Sphere of Heaven, for example. We then hear about the ancient relationship between Mars and war, a frequent connection due its blood-red color, or so we hear. This begins with the Babylonian god Nergal, the underworld sun god of pestilence and war. He became identified with Mars due to his association with dryness, heat, and fire, things seen as being orange-red. The Greeks and Romans did not independently assign Mars to the war gods Ares and Mars, however. They were translating Nergal in adopting Babylonian astronomy. Ancient Aliens doesn’t care about that but instead wants us to conflate the planet with the god Mars. Physicist John Brandenburg tells us that whenever the Romans were at war, the doors to the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome would be thrown open, but he is very wrong. The doors opened at the Temple of Janus, not of Mars (Livy 1.19), or, more accurately, closed to mark times of peace. The material they are falsely attributing about Augustus closing the doors to the Temple of Mars is actually about the Temple of Janus and can be found in Augustus’ funeral inscription Res Gestae Divi Augusti 13 and Cassius Dio at 51.20.4 and 53.26.5. But who expects such fine details as actually checking the primary sources. Following this fact failure, we rehearse the story of Percival Lowell and the canal-based agricultural civilization on Mars. The show does not bother to tell viewers that this was untrue. Next the show discusses the 1976 Viking 1 voyages, which it illustrates with much more recent photography from Mars. They discuss the controversial tests that appeared at the time to suggest the presence of microbial life. Given that bacteria are not intelligent aliens, there isn’t much of interest here since many scientists believe that bacteria-like life can and probably does live on other planets. After the break we go to Teotihuacan in Mexico, to a recently-discovered (in 2003) tunnel that the show says (correctly) is beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent but which they illustrate with the Pyramid of the Sun. They can’t even get this basic fact right. In the tunnel, archaeologists found clay balls covered with gold-colored flecks that the show implies are real gold but are actually iron pyrite, fool’s gold. The walls, too, had gold flecks, making the cavern twinkle and glow in a beautiful way, at least as reconstructed; the real thing oxidized into orange rust. David Wilcock asserts that these flecks were intentionally placed as a star map, which no documentary evidence suggests is even remotely true. But this lets the show discuss the Dresden Codex’s Maya calendar discussion of the celestial position of Mars and its personification as a dragon. Young then relates this to a myth of Xipe Totec involving the god peeling off his own skin to feed the starving. They wrongly equate this with Quetzalcoatl in order to link the god to comets, whose tails could be said to resemble feathers, in order to suggest that this represents a comet striking Mars and peeling off its atmosphere and crust, killing off its civilization. Xipe Totec was not a native Aztec god but one imported from northern Mexico in the Postclassic period. He therefore has nothing to do with Teotihuacan or the predecessors of the Aztecs. After the break, we travel to Mesopotamia again to discuss the excavation of Nineveh and the Library of Ashurbanipal. Here we examine the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story, from the perspective of Zecharia Sitchin. The show wrongly asserts that the Enuma Elish is the story of the Anunnaki (it’s not; they’re barely mentioned) and that the tablets were translated just once, in the nineteenth century. That’s ridiculous. New scholarly editions have appeared regularly down to the present. Erich von Däniken asserts that the nineteenth century “professors” simply did not understand space travel and therefore missed references to “heaven” meaning “outer space.” He’s talking about the Apocalypse of Abraham, but the show misses that and jams his assertion—anomalous reference to Abraham and all—into this section on the Enuma Elish. Using Zecharia Sitchin’s ideas, David Childress tells us that the Anunnaki used Mars as a supply station en route to earth, but he conflates that Sumerians and the Babylonians since they’re all weird old people in dresses, right? David Wilcock asserts that repeated references in cuneiform tablets state that the Anunnaki originated on Mars. Prove it. Name a text. Find any reference in Mesopotamian literature to the idea that Mars was an inhabited land and not a light circling around the tin dome of the sky, as the cuneiform texts actually state and imply. Giorgio Tsoukalos tells us that we are in fact Martians because he has no sense of consistency. We are also from the Orion nebula, the Pleiades, etc. Brandenburg tells us that Mars was destroyed by a nuclear war because traces of xenon-129 can be found there, associated on earth with nuclear explosions. Mainstream scientists note that xenon-129 occurs naturally in Earth’s atmosphere, and its higher concentration on Mars could be due to its remaining behind when most of the planet’s primordial atmosphere was lost, possibly within 100 million years of the planet’s life. Contrary to assertions, xenon-129 is not produced “only” by nuclear blasts but occurs naturally as well through radioactive decay. Brandenburg asserts that “Sumerian” mythology has a myth of the gods engaging in nuclear war on Mars. It does not. After the break, we start talking about whether Mars had oceans and whether there is evidence for microbial life on Mars. But microbes are not the same as humanoids, so this is an attempt to conflate genuine scientific questions with loony theories in order to give credence to the latter by associating them with the former. This leads into a show-and-tell where Giorgio Tsoukalos interviews John Brandenburg in person about the geology of Mars since Brandenburg—who is not a geologist—tries to make the case that two mountains on Mars are the remains of pyramids similar to those of the Giza plateau. His evidence is that the Sphinx was covered in red paint and therefore has to represent the red planet. “It’s conjectural,” Brandenburg says. He points to a lump of rock that he thinks looks just like the Egyptian Sphinx, and on the model he’s made of the site he purposely exaggerates the similarities. In the original NASA photo, I just don’t see anything similar. The photo below is the original NASA image, and the Pyramids are below it. You’ll see there is nothing much they have in common.

The "Twin Peaks." The small lump beneath the left hand peak is the "Sphinx."

Early photograph of the Sphinx, the Pyramid of Khafre (left), and the Great Pyramid (Library of Congress)

Then we hear Mike Bara talk about the “Face on Mars,” a hill that very roughly resembles a human face, an illusion made more convincing by the low resolution of the original image. Later photographs of the Face made plain that it was just a trick of light and shadow. Several of the pundits assert that NASA purposely tried to make the face look natural by taking photos of it at the wrong time of day in 1998 and 2001. This confuses me. If it were artificial, should it not remain obviously so even in broad daylight? Nevertheless, we rehearse claims that various eroded hills on the plain of Cydonia are pyramids and artificial constructions. After the final break we go in for a conspiracy. We start with the 1997 excitement over what at the time was thought to be evidence of microbes in a meteorite from Mars. Later research suggested that these objects could have been natural formations. Again, regardless of whether these really are bacteria, this implies nothing about the existence of an intelligent humanoid civilization on the Red Planet. Instead, the narrator tells us that NASA is suppressing the truth about Mars, and a disgruntled ex-NASA employee asserts that NASA doesn’t want anyone to know that life existed on Mars. I am again confused: NASA doesn’t own Mars. Other countries are welcome to go visit, and private companies could do so if they wished. Why aren’t these pundits piling up their speaking fees and royalties and merchandising profits to fund a Mars probe to go prove that microbes are on Mars, or, if they’re on a budget, hunt up so more Martian meteorites to examine for microbes? NASA doesn’t own all the meteorites on earth either. Instead Mike Bara and Robert Bauval darkly hint that the U.S. government would hide the truth if alien life were ever proven to exist because it could destroy human civilization through panic and fear. If that’s such a risk, and these pundits truly believe it is a real danger to civilization, why does Ancient Aliens exist?

The interpretation of Xipe Totec is really strange, even for Ancient Aliens. A god who flays his own skin to feed humanity, and they interpret that as... Mars losing its atmosphere? Why not a machine that produced manna that fed the Mayans and when it broke down the Mayan civilization collapsed? (Sure, that's the wrong culture, but let's not be picky.) Why not an astronaut taking off his space suit, but he's so advanced his suit is bio-organic so it can be eaten? I mean, geez, if the AA people are going to suggest all ancient symbolism is literal, they should at least be consistent about it.

It comes straight out of Bauval and Hancock's "Mars Mystery" (1998) where they use the myth to suggest that it symbolized the destruction of Mars. It's not a classic ancient astronaut claim, which is why it reads so weird.

Personally,Jonathan Young is maximum turn off.The man is closer to a New Age Guru than to a legitimate academic.He really loves listening to the sound of his own,& as a psychology professor he doesn't even realize,he is the victim of his own Uber narcissism & greed. Fame before dishonor for the man who used to teach "mythic stories & depth psychology" courses,in "transformational psychology & consciousness studies" programs (sounds like something taken from Deepak Chopra`s script book).

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Zach

2/22/2014 02:09:23 pm

I completely agree. For someone who is "supposedly" the protege of one of the most accomplished scholars and professors of the 20th century, his descriptions on mythology comes off as half-assed and suspicious. Campbell would be turning in his grave if he knew this is how his research and studies would be used.

I've also reviewed this appalling travesty on my blog, and cross-linked. Thanks for your review.

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Only Me

2/22/2014 10:54:29 am

I'm wondering how much these guys were influenced by Aaron Spelling. Think of the premise behind Battlestar Galactica: the surviving remnants of twelve advanced, interstellar traveling human colonies, journeying to find a "mythical" thirteenth colony, on a distant planet called Earth. Sounds vaguely familiar, hmm?

Instead, AA wants us to do the reverse; journey to find the homeworld of our alien ancestors...wherever the hell that is.

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Elian Gonzalez

2/23/2014 01:42:19 am

That was Glen A. Larson, but point well taken.

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Pacal

2/22/2014 11:40:57 am

Well there is a tunnel that goes under the pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan to a small cave under the pyramid. However since they were supposed to be talking about the Pyramid / Temple of the Feathered Serpent which they illustrated by showing a picture of the pyramid of the Sun(!!??) , they deserve a smack down for that alone.

It is pretty clear that Ancient Aliens has an enormous amount of contempt for truth and it's audience.

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Graham

2/22/2014 01:32:23 pm

Stuart Robbins over at the Exposing Pseudo astronomy blog has looked into the Brandenberg claims and provides good background on where they probably came from and why they are bogus.

http://podcast.sjrdesign.net/shownotes_086.php

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J.A.D

2/22/2014 02:07:12 pm

I'm a total Ray Bradbury fan!!! His eclectic Martians
were the definitive word on the same! Upon learning
that Mars had a molten core more than 3 billion years
ago I had the happy idea that HIS Martians lived there
quite happily until the core solidified. Science Fiction
impels me to assume they all went to another solar
system next, and I do not think G.T's fantasy E.Ts are
their biological descendants. Ray Bradbury trumps
Edgar Rice Burroughs + H.G. Wells in the game of
life upon pulling a fiction writer card out of the deck.
Now I have to look at the A.A episode to get a 3rd rate
Sci-Fi fix. Once again i think of Ray Bradbury's Mars!

Concerning Burroughs character, not only was he transported to Mars, but he was also transported back in time by about a billion years.
It is also interesting to note that C.S.Lewis, in his space trilogy, started out on Mars. His character, Dr. Elwin Ransom, his kidnapped by a scientist (of questionable character) and his henchman and taken to Mars in a spaceship. Now considering that the book was published in 1938, Lewis' description of the planets surface is quite remarkably close to what we know of Mars today. Mars is shown to have a very thin atmosphere and the life there survives by living in the canyon areas ,below the surface level, where the atmosphere is thicker.

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charlie

2/22/2014 04:38:19 pm

Wow, how long can they keep this disaster going? They have about run out of new things and seem to just either rehash old shows or just come along with absolute pure speculation.
I agree with you Jason, they do not ever do any real research nor even the most basic of fact checking. This season has been a huge waste of time. It is no longer eve funny at all to me, just sort of embarrassing to any viewer with a half way decent education and/or real interest in history or myth.
The guy from the "Joseph Campbell Archives" has totally gone off the rails as far as a supposed student of Joseph Campbell. I watched the TV shows PBS did of his lectures and the interviews he did with Moyers.
I want to include this from Joseph Campbell himself; "Whenever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed..........Furthermore, it is never difficult to demonstrate that as science or history, mythology is absurd. When a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the links between the two perspectives becomes dissolved."
My opinion of Mr. Young is that he has totally lost any connection with Joseph Campbell. By the way, I find no evidence that his "Joseph Campbell Archives" has any connection the "Joseph Campbell Foundation" which was set up by Joes' widow and others, not Mr. Young.

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charlie

2/22/2014 04:55:03 pm

I forgot to add that I agree 100% with Zach, that Joseph Campbell would be spinning in his grace at the way this Mr. Young has abused myth. Disgusting, but I suppose he rakes in the big bucks and that IS what matters to so many in the US of A in this time period. For the record, I am a US citizen, former US Marine and a veteran of the Vietnam war, so I feel quite free to be critical of this country and the charlatans who we seem to have an overabundance of today.

You are right on that one. In the past, they were pretty much restricted to the traveling medicine shows. Only the more famous ones like P.T.Barnum or Dr. Mesmer made into full public display. With the advent mass communication, in the form of national magazines, movies, radio, and television, they now had a wider forum for dispensation of their weird and noxious ideas, theories, and products. Now with the addition of the internet and (where any nut can post their beliefs at no personal cost) that number is liable to increase exponentially.

J.A.D

2/22/2014 05:01:39 pm

About four minutes into the program we get a brief look at the Senmat star*map from 1534 BCE --- it has a solar eclipse and
a conjunction of Saturn & Jupiter that year. This suggests that
Ptolemy is about 1500 years after a Golden Age of knowledge
and his epicycles did build upon a library's lore most ancient!!!
Senmat or Senenmut is Pharaoh Hatshepsut's Grand Visor...

If there was a comet impact on Mars that is worse
than the impact of the meteor that hits the Yucatan
65 million years ago, in order to have an atmosphere
to strip, this happened within the first billion years of
the planet's history. We are talking about an impact
roughly 3.5 to 4 billion years ago because the molten
core and a watery surface go hand in hand with an
atmosphere that is not there much later on. If the
cataclysm occurred, it occurred billions of years ago.

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Clint Knapp

2/22/2014 08:00:24 pm

An entire episode about Mars without Richard C. Hoaglund spinning tales about ancient space wars, the artificial construction of Phobos, or the "hyperdimensional torsion physics" he measures with a wrist-watch hooked up to a laptop? I must say, I'm disappointed.

The Face makes the cut, but that's old-hat-Hoaglund. He has so much more crankery to peddle these days they could be capitalizing on that it just seems insane not to. Even his explanation of the Face has morphed into representing something half-human/half-cat!

Missed opportunity, AA. Missed. Opportunity.

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Seeker

2/22/2014 08:01:56 pm

Thank you for breaking this train wreck down, Jason. I finally cancelled my season pass to Ancient Aliens because it's gone so far off the edge, I can't even get through an episode any longer. Hopefully H2 will get the hint and finally put this thing out of its misery.

I never watch those ancient aliens things because they are screwed up in their theology and linguistics and rely on debunked Sitchin and other issues, your articles show how they can't even get their history and current archaeology right.

HOWEVER.....the naturally occuring xenon 129 in our atmosphere, just how natural is it? is there a record of recording it before the first atomic tests? The for a while ongoing slow burn natural nuclear reaction in Gabon in an overly rich Uranium deposit probably put some in the atmosphere, but not the level reported on Mars, right?

Mars' atmosphere isn't that thin. A good case for error due to dust etc. clogging sensors on Martian probes is made at

http://arkcode.com/3%20Martian%20Air%20Pressure%20Part%20III.pdf

and

http://davidaroffman.com/custom3_52.html

I noticed years ago, just on the Mariner 9 photos, that the kind and structure of clouds there (which NASA admits are water clouds) CANNOT FORM AT SUCH LOW PRESSURE, a quick check of meteology shows this, I used an older book with a nice structured diagram and drawings of them for Earth.

The dust devils reported there are also are impossible at such allegedly low pressures. And the Lowell Observatory was amazed that such a low pressure of air could hold so much dust when the Viking photos came in, but didn't think to question the pressure claims.

presents a theory rather different than the usual secular or Christian (but it is Christian) theories, I am sure some here and Jason won't like the opening parts, but it is addressed to those who take The Face as real for granted.

Bottom line, yep, someone's there but they came from here.

Also for those interested in hidden history on Earth, nothing to do with aliens, is a book by my late father Elliot Erikson, which makes a case for Karl Marx having ulterior motives in his writing. (and a wild scene reported by an observer of the time that makes me suspect Marx as well as Hitler was possessed, Marx (not mentioned in this ebook) was apparently into the occult, made a pro lucifer poem, and was according to this ebook the first socialist/communist to demand atheism be a formal plank.

And again it looks like AA is going to be used as an icebreaker show for another fringe show. Any plans to look at least at the first episode of Hangar 1?

I'm about 55 minutes in this morning and all I can think of is James P. Hogan and "Inherit the Stars," where cataclysm drives humanity from a solar-system body to Earth, riding the Moon. As long as they're driving the Romans intro the AA arena by way of the temple of Janus, I'm disappointed that they ignored the Campus Martius while mentioning how al-Qahira supposedly means "the plain of Mars," and how the immediate cause of the Punic Wars were the Mamertine pirates. If you were going to look for influences of Mars on ancient history, you could at least use proven influences.

I might check out the first episode, but it looks like it's going to be recent UFO sightings, so I probably won't do much with it.

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An Over-Educated Grunt

2/24/2014 01:40:16 am

About what I expected. I was expecting any review you did of it to be more TV criticism than anything else.

yakko

2/24/2014 10:34:19 am

I've been seeing promos for "Hangar 1". That's the one about a secret underground group of experts who present extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary claims of people who see UFOs. The "group of experts" is MUFON, which is about as "underground" as the Freemasons. I might check it out, but I don't have high hopes for it. From UFO Digest:

"The premise of each show is to piece together three MUFON cases that tie in to historic UFO events and try to show what the alien agenda may be. Actual footage, recreations and narratives will be used along with expert testimony. The Hangar 1 title comes from the actual Hangar 1 where the vast archive of 70,000 MUFON cases and evidence are stored including the Leonard Stringfield files. The show clearly pits MUFON against the U.S. government cover-up of UFOs."

Well, THAT sounds like a well-reasoned and objective view of the subject, doesn't it? I'd take wagers as to how much narrative and how many recreations we'll see, compared to how much original footage of lenticular clouds and the like. And we all know who the "expert testimony" is likely to come from.

I used to like shows of this sort just for the laughs, but like a bad SNL skit, it just goes on beyond the point of being funny, and just gets annoying. If I hear the phrase "government coverup" one more time, I'm going to throw my TV out the window. Well, that is if I can figure out how to unplug all the cables from it.

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An Over-Educated Grunt

2/25/2014 03:01:40 am

Don't you know, your TV doesn't actually NEED all those cables. It's a conspiracy by Big Wiring to make sure you stay tied to the wall!

yakko

2/25/2014 07:09:31 pm

And I'm sure that one of those cables is the one that feeds in all the Illuminati mind-control stuff I hear tell about.

Jase

2/23/2014 03:36:30 am

Jason, do you think that you might ever publish your 3-volume "Studies in Ancient Astronautics" in e-book format? I hope that you might consider offering a package price for all 3 volumes that saves on the cost of buying each volume separately.

It's on the list for eBook release, but I did the paperbacks before I learned how to make eBooks, so the conversion will be more difficult and take some time. I won't put them together though since they aren't really related in any way other than the series title.

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Jase

2/23/2014 06:45:41 pm

Thank you for the reply.

Jamie Eckles

2/23/2014 04:17:33 am

I kid you not. I once heard Richard Hoagland claim that the Pathfinder rover traveled to the "face" and blew it up so it wouldn't be recognizable.

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yakko

2/24/2014 10:14:14 am

That must be in revenge for the Martians blowing up so many of our probes when we first started visiting there.

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Jamie Eckles

2/24/2014 03:04:32 pm

I got the impression that Hoaxland (a pet nickname I have for him) felt
that the guys holding Masonic meetings in the back of Old Navy stores
did that just to embarrass him. If you aren't familiar with him it's hilarious
how many crazy claims he's come up with over the years. The claim
about Mason's holding meetings in the back of Old Navy stores was one of them. It was all based on a screwup with a 1-800 number.

yakko

2/24/2014 06:46:50 pm

I only know him by way of his Face on Mars stuff. In my town, the Masons have all of their secret meetings in this inconspicuous little building called...well, the Masonic Temple, and it's the third largest building on the town green after the Congregational church and the library. It must be the REALLY SECRET stuff that goes on in the back of Old Navy stores. :-) I'm going to have to check him out a little more closely.

Jamie Eckles

2/24/2014 10:16:01 pm

To learn more about Hoagland an excellent place to start would be at the following link:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/index.html

yakko

2/25/2014 06:56:14 pm

Oh, I think I've run across this page before. I'm quite familiar with Phil Plait and his various Bad Astronomy sites. I don't think I read much of anything on this page at the time, probably I just looked it over and then bookmarked it for later and never got back to it. I have a long list of websites in my bookmark folder labeled "Out There" which I never quite seem to get back to, since I'm always off on the next journey.

On Plait's older site I mostly read his analyses of TV shows and movies. I read his blog on Discovery quite a bit, but haven't gotten around to checking out his new blog on Slate.

Hoagland is a joke. Part of the reason he went off about Old Navy was that, at the time, they had a sale on shirts @ $19.50. Now, the only reason the number 19.5 is special, according to him, has to do with a tetrahedron inscribed in a sphere. It's a latitude, measured in degrees.

Yet for him, it's still magic if it's a dollar amount, the apparent magnitude of a comet (Elenin), the rotation period in minutes of an asteroid (YU55), or a time. In the case of a time, 19h50min or 19.5h are both good. Yet this brain-damaged person is paid as a "science advisor" to a very popular radio show.

Hoagland is a joke. Part of the reason he went off about Old Navy was that, at the time, they had a sale on shirts @ $19.50. Now, the only reason the number 19.5 is special, according to him, has to do with a tetrahedron inscribed in a sphere. It's a latitude, measured in degrees.

Yet for him, it's still magic if it's a dollar amount, the apparent magnitude of a comet (Elenin), the rotation period in minutes of an asteroid (YU55), or a time. In the case of a time, 19h50min or 19.5h are both good. Yet this brain-damaged person is paid as a "science advisor" to a very popular radio show.

Hoagland is a joke. Part of the reason he went off about Old Navy was that, at the time, they had a sale on shirts @ $19.50. Now, the only reason the number 19.5 is special, according to him, has to do with a tetrahedron inscribed in a sphere. It's a latitude, measured in degrees.

Yet for him, it's still magic if it's a dollar amount, the apparent magnitude of a comet (Elenin), the rotation period in minutes of an asteroid (YU55), or a time. In the case of a time, 19h50min or 19.5h are both good. Yet this brain-damaged person is paid as a "science advisor" to a very popular radio show.

Hoagland is a joke. Part of the reason he went off about Old Navy was that, at the time, they had a sale on shirts @ $19.50. Now, the only reason the number 19.5 is special, according to him, has to do with a tetrahedron inscribed in a sphere. It's a latitude, measured in degrees.

Yet for him, it's still magic if it's a dollar amount, the apparent magnitude of a comet (Elenin), the rotation period in minutes of an asteroid (YU55), or a time. In the case of a time, 19h50min or 19.5h are both good. Yet this brain-damaged person is paid as a "science advisor" to a very popular radio show.

Hoagland is a joke. Part of the reason he went off about Old Navy was that, at the time, they had a sale on shirts @ $19.50. Now, the only reason the number 19.5 is special, according to him, has to do with a tetrahedron inscribed in a sphere. It's a latitude, measured in degrees.

Yet for him, it's still magic if it's a dollar amount, the apparent magnitude of a comet (Elenin), the rotation period in minutes of an asteroid (YU55), or a time. In the case of a time, 19h50min or 19.5h are both good. Yet this brain-damaged person is paid as a "science advisor" to a very popular radio show.

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Me

7/16/2014 10:39:34 pm

Sometimes you are annoying like all "theorists"

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Timo

2/2/2015 01:05:58 pm

I just wonder why nobody takes a shot at the TV shows that pander to the lowest common denominator. I wouldn't have a big problem if the were broadcast oN some other channel, but where I live they are shown on Discovery Channel and History Channel. I hold these channels to a higher standard since (in theory at least) are supposed to be broadcasting factual information unless they are showing a movie. Their standard plea "the views expressed in this broadcast do no necesarrily express the views of this station, etc.) doesn't count. They need to be held to a higher standard, but won't change unless we start screaming at them. The search for higher ratings is what drives this, but if those of us with a certain degree of common sense threatened to stop watching. I'm sure that the majority of viewers are like others who have posted. We are, I believe, in the majority. We deserve to be heard.

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Andrew

3/22/2016 07:52:08 pm

If ancient aliens wanted to maybe seem credible, they would mention that Mayan Mythology mentions a god who descends from the sky and gives humanity a Gift...the god is called Ah Mucen Cab. But they cant mention ACTUAL facts about mayan gods, can they?

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.